By PAULA TRACY, InDepthNH.org

CONCORD – The New Hampshire Association of Counties is expressing concern about a proposed 10-year agreement with the state that would significantly reduce the amount of timber cut from the 145,000-acre Connecticut Lakes Headwaters tract.

The forested land, at the very tip of the state and mostly in the town of Pittsburg, has a conservation easement the state bought more than 20 years ago which allows the private property owner to manage it for forestry and recreation. It requires a 10-year plan approved by the state.

The land was purchased by a “carbon first” company, Aurora Sustainable Lands LCC, whose primary mission is to use former industrial logging tracts for carbon capture. Instead of cutting the trees where a timber tax is assessed, the company allows the trees to grow to offset emissions impacts for companies.

Counties receive timber tax as an income source along with municipalities.

Sarah Stewart, commissioner of the state Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, initially rejected a plan offered by Aurora this January to reduce cutting on the state’s largest single private land tract and is now considering a secondary proposal which increases the cut from the first draft.

In a letter dated Monday, Wendy Piper, president of the New Hampshire Association of Counties, sent Stewart a letter to outline the concerns related to Aurora’s plans on behalf of all 10 New Hampshire counties. 

She noted the “precedent that it will set for easements across the state, if this project is approved as submitted.”

When the property came on the market following years of industrial harvesting, the state and federal governments along with environmental groups worked on a plan which allowed the land to be held privately, but spent millions of dollars on a protective easement which then U.S. Sen. Judd Gregg and former Governor and now U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen worked to ensure logging and recreation.

Piper said in her letter that the easement requires that the property “be managed to 1) preserve its role as a working forest; 2) support the timber harvesting industry; 3) support its role as a vital forest product producer and the economy of the North Country.

“Preserving the original intent of the easement is vital to lands in New Hampshire and changing this easement will set an unhealthy precedent across the state. Counties need to be confident that the state will honor the agreements that are made to protect New Hampshire.

“The Association would ask that you closely consider the documentation submitted by the Coos County Commissioners on Oct. 4, 2024.” 

On Oct. 4, Stewart attended a meeting at the Pittsburg Fire Station where members of the Coos County Commissioners charged that the “carbon-first” approach to managing the land represents a breach of contract.

They praised Stewart for rejecting the first plan offered in January by Aurora Sustainable Lands, the new owners. A revised plan offered in July, which increases its logging goals from the January plan but still the cuts for the timber are significantly under historic levels and far below the annual growth of the trees.

Many attending the meeting of the Connecticut Lakes Headwaters Citizens Committee, including a number of state Representatives, said they are not pleased with the current proposal from Aurora.

In addition to creating a sustainable wood basket for the region’s logging and mills, the easement was also crafted to protect the land for snowmobiling, hunting and open space while allowing the land to be privately owned and logged. 

Under the easement, two previous owners did that and had 10-year plans to cut approved.

The easement terms limit what the landowners can and cannot do and the 10-year master plan drives those terms with the state approving the terms.

But the easement did not know or contemplate a future market where the property could become a “carbon credit farm” where the trees have more value standing and being used by corporations to offset their carbon footprint than the yield from logging.

Aurora “taps into the planet’s oldest and most cost-effective carbon removal tool, trees, to deliver nature-based carbon credits with unrivaled reliability, durability, and quality to our customers,” according to its website.

The trees grow faster than that in terms of cords per year, about 60,000 cords a year, they were told.

It has planned to reduce the harvesting of logs. In past years more than 20,000 cords were cut. Last season about 15,000 cords were cut, attendees at the Oct. 4 meeting in Pittsburg, were told.

“We’re trying to get to mutual ground here,” said Patrick Hackley, state forester. 

Some argued that the new owners are currently not in compliance with the current 10-year plan right now.

Towns count on timber tax revenue for income and are losing it in Pittsburg, Stewartstown, and Clarksville. That revenue has dropped significantly and it also impacts the county coffers.

Pittsburg is receiving a one-time payment in lieu of lost revenue but is looking at a budget hole that could be more than 10 percent in the years to come if there is less in timber taxes.

And the impact is also being felt by local mills.

Richard Roy, who owns a sawmill, said he has lost 20 percent of the logs he used to get from the tract and now his workers are down to four days a week and he is having to go as far as New York to source wood.

The fact his workers are down 50 days of work a year has a multiple effect on the region’s economy and is “a real issue,” Roy told the advisory commission.

The 10-county letter sent today points to a 40-page response from the Coos County commission, which was summarized during the meeting Friday of the advisory committee, said the plan is “fundamentally incompatible” with the easement, and urged the state Department of Natural and Cultural Resources to recognize this.

The Attorney General’s Office is also looking at the terms of the easement in concert with the state DNCR.

The commissioners said they want the state to investigate the previous decision to register the forest tract with the California Air and Resources Board for carbon capture as being non-conforming with the easement.

Aurora, which assumed ownership from the Forestland Group which registered the tract with CARB, is planning to increase the rates for camp owners on the land.

Aurora’s regional director of forest operations, Shawn Hagan, said recreation fees are also being reviewed.

Carbon capture is a whole new issue for the state to deal with.

This year, in the legislature, a bill was passed and signed by the governor which creates a registry for lands that are enrolled in carbon capture projects like the California Air Resources Board.

Officials say that is the first step to understanding the size of the market and where potential logging and timber tax revenues could be lost.

For now the decision is in the hands of Commissioner Stewart.